Deanese Williams-Harris

Writer

After two careers in retail and health care, Deanese "Neacy" Williams-Harris decided to return to school at the age of 29 to pursue a degree in journalism. At Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, she researched how minority communities are covered in print news. During her undergrad years she worked as a editorial assistant and a news correspondent for the Southern Illinoisan paper and a research assistant for the Black American Studies Department. In 2006, she earned a bachelor of science degree in news editorial with a minor in political science. Later that year she entered the University of Illinois at Springfield’s Public Affairs Reporting program and interned for Illinois Issues magazine, covering legislative issues. After earning a master of arts degree she returned home to Chicago with her two sons and landed a job at the Tribune. Hired in 2007 as a Metro resident, she worked on the Metro desk until being permanently placed at the Breaking News Center.

Recent Articles

Officials are investigating a fight that happened early Friday morning that in the Union Ridge neighborhood that involved an off-duty Chicago police officer. About 3:40 a.m., several people notified officers to an argument that turned physical in the 7100 block of West Higgins Avenue. A preliminary...

A man was killed, and four others have been wounded since Thursday afternoon in separate shootings on the South Side, Chicago police said. The fatal shooting happened about 4:20 p.m. in the Gresham neighborhood in the 1200 block of West 81st Street. Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s...

A former local university instructor who researched Chicago policing and its impact on the black community has been nominated to a top post with the city inspector general’s office to audit police accountability measures. Joseph Lipari, an assistant for the New York Police Department’s office of...

The two women sprinted to the car, clutching their phones and looking back at two ambulances sitting in the middle of the South Side street. “Where is it going?” one of them yelled as she tugged on the door handle. “U of C,” the other replied, getting into the car. The car backed down the street,...

A man died two days after he was shot on the West Side in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, Chicago police said. A 24-year-old man was sitting on his porch July 5 about 11:30 p.m. in the 1000 block of North Ridgeway Avenue when he was shot in the neck. He was taken in critical condition to Stroger...

When Melanie Perry peers out the seventh-floor window of her Kenwood high-rise, she has a clear view of the helicopter pad at the University of Chicago Medical Center. “It’s as if God is telling me your kidney is in your view,” she said. “God is keeping me. He can move mountains.” Perry, 34, has...

The gold sedan’s driver’s side door was wide open, and everyone could see the man in the white T-shirt slumped over the steering wheel. The 41-year-old man crashed into a raised median after he was was shot in the head shortly before 1:40 a.m. Saturday in the Princeton Park neighborhood of the...